Game 8: Biggest BLUNDER? - 2023 World Chess Championship | Ding vs Nepomniachtchi

Featured is Game 8 between Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi from the 2023 World Chess Championship match. It’s a Nimzo-Indian Defense, Sämisch Variation with Ding combining Ra2 with some fishing pole action on the kingside. By move 12 something about the position became very fishy to the spectators. Might reaching that position turn out to be the biggest blunder of all in the match? Going into game 8 Ding Liren trails 3 points to Nepomniachtchi’s 4. The 2023 World Chess Championship is a best of 14-game match being played in Astana, Kazakhstan. The first player to earn 7.5 points will receive the lion's share (60%) of the approximately $2.2 million prize pool and claim the most prestigious title in chess: 'World Chess Champion'.
Image of Ding Liren courtesy of Lennart Ootes
lennartootes.com
I'm a self-taught National Master in chess out of Pennsylvania, USA who was introduced to the game by my father in 1988 at the age of 8. The purpose of this channel is to share my knowledge of chess to help others improve their game. I enjoy continuing to improve my understanding of this great game, albeit slowly. Consider subscribing here on KZbin for frequent content, and/or connecting via any or all of the below social medias. Your support is greatly appreciated. Take care, bye. :)
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[@ChessNetwork]

It’s a big coordinates test! 😎

[@staniststan6509]

Damit! I have to now edit my comment.😂😂

[@lewis8200]

Caught me off guard when I first noticed lol

[@fgb3126]

You mean you set up the coordinates wrong on purpose? I just saw it happen twice, now with N on "g-3" when it's on b-3! I don't understand. What is meant by "big coordinates test"?

[@aleattorium]

Hahahahaha

[@patronofpariah]

It's perfect for the day of the year it came out on 🤣🤣

[@Castiglr]

Thanks a lot Jerry for the recap! Amazing game (and championship). Every time a winning position was thrown away I was thinking “so, this is the blunder” but wow… the news you dropped at the end is huge! I’m shocked, thanks for sharing it.

[@mmfijalko]

Jerry was very gentle in his judgment of the game.

[@dennybm]

"That's not h2 that's a7... oh hold on a second"

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

Funny how Ding's blunder of not taking the rook on d8 is a move that most amateur players would not have missed. Nepmniachtchi's buff was a genius move!

[@1994mrmysteryman]

But can any amateur player avoid the perpetual right after? Lol. You have make the perfect move for about a dozen moves.

[@aliensconfirmed3498]

@@1994mrmysteryman With 20+ minutes on the clock and with ability to visualise board and moving pieces it was easy to escape the perpetual. Yes you have to calculate dozen moves but it's not like you have many choices on each move. Commentators calculated it in less than 2 minutes. Even if we factor in in game pressure it's still matter of 3 minutes and may be another 2 for double checking. Ding just played terribly in this game.

[@1994mrmysteryman]

@@aliensconfirmed3498 Commentators have the foresight of engines. What's your elo?

[@jacokyle0160]

You don’t have to use clickbait Jerry; I’ll watch the video no matter what.

[@staniststan6509]

I am pretty sure if not for the game 7, Ding would have pretty easily found Rook D3 winning move even in later part bishop C6 defending pawn instead of kicking Knight. To sum up, Ding lacked situational awareness here which is also an important aspect of any sport. Like in the previous game, he played h4 which was not a bad move but considering his time situation not called for. Also, he under estimated his position, he had 0.6-0.7 advantage till the move he froze & turns a promising position into a loss. Actually, if he had gone for even less concrete moves & made a draw in game 7, no one would have complaint given the match situation. In game 8, Nepo took Ding's psychological aspect into account. He played a lost position by throwing his moves fast & forcing Ding to move at his pace instead of finding killer moves by taking some time. Yes, he made many blunders but even his blunder played on Ding's fear! Now, it's upto Nepo to throw the match. For me, it's done & dusted.

[@gauravbhagat2869]

Sorry if I'm wrong but the board u r showing in the video has wrong notation marked it's flipped

[@masondotnet]

True. It’s setup for black.

[@Brooder85]

Man, what a tragic outcome for Liren. There is nothing more painful than letting a pivotal championship game slip through your fingers. Wow. I can almost feel his pain...

[@dimiro92]

Wohoooo🎉 Just realized that the board is flipped lol

[@sjoe_87]

Took me a while to realize the board was switched and white has it's pieces on the 8th and 7th rank.

[@danielhanafin9885]

Want to drive a bunch of chess enthusiasts insane? Set up the board w the coordinates reversed haha my brain hurts

[@AroundWayOther]

such a hot match so far! so many chances for both players, very fun to see ty for the coverage jerry!

[@judemorales4U]

Appreciate the way you deliver content. Clear and concise. Thanks, I like your channel 😊

[@fgb3126]

I agree 500%

[@zmancan5290]

All, beware the board coordinates are reversed. yrreJ is off his game today.

[@JcGross93]

The lettering and numbering on the board is reversed.

[@gerokron3412]

This championship has everything!

[@SixNAC]

Excellent coverage again Jerry, thank you

[@moocowpong1]

I love the way Ding plays, it’s a shame he missed the winning line at the end there.

[@funnybunnyh8303]

Pretty frustrating. Some of the missed lines are understandable for Ding, but the later blunders are not really excusable if you aim to win the WCC title. And the fact that they also leaked their own prep in such an amateur way, is just the icing on the cake. Was excited for the match because of the decisive games so far, and the prospect of having a new champion. But with the knowledge of Ding's prep and how the last two games went, I can't see how this ends in anything but a win for Nepo, unless Ding's team comes up with something brilliant on the fly.

[@maxcoy1771]

What an interesting game... sad to see Ding miss out on the few key chances for a decisive victory.

[@rickb3078]

Is the numbering on the board correct?

[@colinjava8447]

no

[@DavidBedell654]

Hell no.

[@adnenabdessayed1813]

i was confused as well

[@pkl654]

I really enjoy your analysis and narrative. Would be nicer to see the side bar showing the evaluation for all the position.

[@chrishauser5505]

Holy crap. That's like the Allies decoding Enigma. Ding's camp either made a horrible tactical error, or they're playing 3-D chess and trying to lure Nepo's camp in with a red herring backed by a thrown game!!??

[@anonymous-q2b5s]

Very unlikely. The accounts played a lot of games and the games line up too well with what we've seen so far. I'm saying horrible tactical error. Only hope for Liren is that Nepomniachtchi is honourable enough to not look at the games. But I don't think anyone would be mad if he did.

[@zacharyfisher6066]

20:55 is there a refutation to Bf3?

[@BriantWebster]

omg. did NOT expect that ending hahah

[@coulie27]

Incredible! Every game is a rollercoaster 🎢

[@ashoksafaya5397]

Thanks for giving information about Lichess if I heard it correctly, appears on my phone.

[@aleattorium]

Drama/clickbait chess youtubers will title it "DING LIREN ALMOST DROP THE SPAGHETTI"

[@gavinlangley8411]

During the live coverage they suggested Ding had a forced win around move 20. You didn't show it so I'm assuming that was not available. Is that not correct Jerry?

[@PETAJOULE543]

The chess board is wrong

[@alifputrawan9565]

This is entertaining game tbh.

Love your recaps! U and Daniel King are mu favourits

[@AnaIvanovic4ever]

Am I crazy or are the pieces set up wrong? White at row 7 and 8 and black at 1 and 2?

[@TheAleksander22]

You're not crazy

[@embeleco2342]

Pieces are on their correct color, it's just the numbers that are flipped.

[@arijitkundu5577]

Nice analysis.

[@sugarglider96]

This is very complicated game, really love it! Still rooting for Ding

[@cptnoremac]

When did he say it was a bluff? In the press conference he said he thought it was brilliant and like 90 seconds into Ding's turn he realized it wasn't a perpetual.

[@Vendavalez]

I don’t know how to put this, so I’ll try my best. Im enjoying these games because it feels like they are playing one another. Like they are taking into consideration who they are playing against as much as the situation on the board. It feels like everyone is too intimidated of Magnus to play anything but against the board on a WCC match.

[@nickcellino1503]

In the Tale of the Tape, the name is listed as Liren, Ding. Actually, his family name is Ding so it should be listed as Ding, Liren.

[@fezza090]

China reverse it for some reason. Chinese UFC fighters have their family name listed before their given name as well

[@bones343]

Three chances to win and Ding missed them all?!? Oof!

[@embeleco2342]

Flipped coordinates, lol. That is going to confuse a lot of chess-by-the-numbers players. Missed the horsies though.

[@RyanTaylor-pi8gq]

Obviously, this has been a far more swingy set of combative games than we're used to seeing in a world championship. But is it me, or has it been consistently centered around kingside attacks? Perhaps I'm not seeing the big picture, but it does feel like we've seen a lot of these aggressive king-side positions in all of the crucial games.

[@TymexComputing]

Hello... Why white rook is on h8 Jerry? - because the other one is on a8 Tymex :)

[@chrishauser5505]

Wonder if Ding had the yips a bit after he blew that last one under time pressure

[@randallbaker4293]

You've got the letters/numbers backwards!!!!

[@Noarcs]

Speaking out loud, Jerry called the positions correctly. Visually, the ranks and columns were mislabeled.

[@Sn28sept]

8:06 why not play Nh4?

[@Abwehr9]

I guess g5 would be even better then, cause bishop on a6 doesn't pin the knight

[@Sn28sept]

​@@Abwehr9 well after g5 i comeback again...whats ur follow up, probably Nf6. But where's mate?

[@Abwehr9]

@@Sn28sept not sure that I see a m8, but I'd follow up with f4 instead of Nf6, so that I can bring the second rook to the h-file.

[@Abwehr9]

@@Sn28sept so: 20: ... Nh4 21: g5 Nf5 22: f4 Rh8 23: Rah2 Rxh2 24: Rxh2 ??? 25: Qh3 Qh8 26: Qxh8 Rxh8 27: Rxh8 Kxh8 28: d7 Pawn queens next move, don't see how you can prevent that (except for trading your queen on the 24th move for the rook, but idk if that would even work).

[@Sn28sept]

​@@Abwehr9after 22.f4 i will not play Rh8...i will take ur pawn boldly😊. probably you will continue your plan stacking rooks.Then i gonna play Rg8 so that my king can escape. Probably i am missing something hope you find that.

[@Harnas31]

This Rook H7 is often seen in Chinese chess with the same idea.

[@zwischendurundmoll3968]

A really nice idea, new to me but it makes so much sense as I really love the Catalan because you can often place your rook opposite the opponents queen with this it's of course also possible

[@bobanobahoba1642]

Easier to see the use in xiangqi since there's nothing getting in its way on that rank and the rooks are the strongest pieces in that game, you see "rook" to "H7" then "C7" very often

[@NewDawn-jb8sy]

Where do you live stream the games?

[@ChessNetwork]

Twitch ChessNetwork

[@daominah]

Oh, poor Ding, his preparation got revealed, I like d4 player as Ding and Jerry

[@looinrims]

The board is cursed

[@kupopuffs420]

I am total chess noob but when is h2 also a7?

[@Vannak201]

It seems jerry accidentally set up the coordinates from blacks point of view. The bottom left square should be A1 not H8

[@kupopuffs420]

@@Vannak201 ty!

[@bobgold57]

Awesome match. Relentless fighting chess. In some ways it reminds me of early Lasker matches.

[@fgb3126]

It certainly does NOT remind me of the boring Carlsen matches.

[@anonymous-q2b5s]

​@@fgb3126 I found each of the 12 drawn games against Caruana more exciting than any of these games so far.

[@OmneAurumNon]

I'm just here to see your reaction to the fishing poles :)

[@slink66]

19:29 .. checkmate in 1 ?!

[@RishadanPortChess]

No, Qe4+ is not checkmate, Kxd6 (Knight is now unprotected). But yah white is threatening checkmate in 1, but black has a bunch of checks

[@asherh.8593]

Kxd6

[@DAS_k1ishEe]

nope, king takes knight, trades queens

[@willmunoz1638]

oof, coordinate flip

[@Relinger]

19:30 What about Qd5?

[@karans6762]

If Qe4+ then Kxd6 wins

[@Relinger]

@@karans6762 Not possible cause protected by knight

[@karans6762]

@@Relinger The knight doesn't protect itself? Read my comment again. Also note that the lettering and numbering for the squares is incorrect in the video.

[@Relinger]

@@karans6762 Bruh I dont know what are you talking about. I just say, you cannot promote to the second queen, because Qd5 is checkmate on the spot

[@rohitg1529]

@@Relinger The knight is hanging. Qd5 is not mate

[@LuisAldamiz]

37 : f3 ? Sure: Ne2 (check) but Kb3 solved. The pawn would be all the time defended by the bishop and the knight's attack goes nowehere.

[@nintendomusicchannel1317]

My potions are no match for you Traveler

[@1994mrmysteryman]

That's what makes Carlsen different. He would have never fallen for that perpetual bluff. Nerves of steel, that guy.

[@guckfoogle2779]

He almost always knows when to simplify the game and force his opponent into the endgame when it is most favorable for Magnus.

[@brandonmiles8174]

Oh, by the way, your coordinates were reversed on the board in this video. Not a big deal, but might throw off some lesser experienced players trying to get a grasp on the notation.

[@JG-zs8tr]

Isn’t there an option on lichess to play private games? Couldn’t they have at least deleted those accounts and the records of those games? Or is every online game just permanent public knowledge?

[@micke7]

they're there forever

[@chinnaiah.G]

This 8th game of world chess championship 2023 final is very wild game?! Ding failed in his attack?

[@brandonmiles8174]

So bf3 pretty much gave up ALL the leverage for white on the whole board. I was wondering what happened, and apparently the engine says I'm right. I stopped watching just a couple moves before that and had to go to sleep. That's sad, man. Of course there were other bad moves, but it looks like that really is where white screwed up, trying to chase that knight away and losing his d pawn that was essentially the entire position. When he played D5 the commentators were surprised but I had just been calculating that move and the lines it offered and it seemed very promising. It had real possibility of setting up some tactics, splitting Nepo's focus between the middle of the board and the kings side because if you only focused on one area, with those two mobile rooks and the open h file, it really could've put Nepo in a losing position where his resources would've just been spread too thin. Ugh. Even still, Ding managed to pull out a really good game with some good chances after that HUGE collapse in game 7, so I hope he's not beating himself up too bad before game 9. He got really low on the clock again, which I think did him in ultimately, overlooking that knight grabbing the pawn. Even still, he didn't HAVE to take the knight with the rook, he could've still played bc6, but he had very little time. At least we're getting to see some exciting WCC play, and both guys have had really great moments, but also some really big learning moments.

[@TymexComputing]

2:40, that rook wont get into f2 or h2 :)

[@gbu32]

Well done Thanks. Perfect wisdom is unplanned. "Master Po"

[@BamThwok76]

that was intense.

[@romperstomper9371]

Thanks!

[@mziyandamanuku45]

Check mate after promoting the pawn😅

[@micke7]

i love this wcc match . sad about the blunder

[@damonm8204]

What a game

[@branndurg7233]

Thank you

[@jimmccann3856]

Hmmm... Jerry, despite your comments I still do not understand the SIGNIFICANCE of the LiChess practice games. So what if Nepo now knows? (Or are you saying he knew before Game 8 that this was a probable line? Or are you saying that Nepo can now access Dings prep in various other lines, thus invalidating all their pre-match prep? Or are you saying something else? What about Ding/Rapport playing publicly, on purpose, knowing that Nepo would certainly find out. Could this sort of Disinformation + PsyOp have any useful purpose?) It is a fascinating subject, but what is it that you are saying exactly?

[@OmneAurumNon]

I think the concern is that now that this is public, Nepo's team can (and likely already has) looked at every other game played by these accounts, and may be able to predict what openings Ding will play next

[@DrLawIrk]

@@OmneAurumNon but this is Ding's problem, isn't it?)

[@sashaboydcom]

@@DrLawIrk Yes, hence why he's calling it a blunder

[@arcterus9060]

Nepo having access to Ding's preparation and being able to counter-prepare directly against it is absolutely a matter of some significance.

[@DrLawIrk]

@@arcterus9060 it's not about Nepo having access to anything. It's about someone being stupid enough to leave preparations in public space for anyone to grab.

[@KF1]

But WHY would you put your prep on a public server? Surely there are lesser known chess sites that don't keep a full log of all games played. Star Wars chess App, Pokemon theme chess, My Little Pony ffs

[@kawserahmed77]

wtf the board🐸🐸

[@AnaIvanovic4ever]

Dammit, I want to share this video with my nephew who is into chess, but the reversed board will confuse him. Could you please reupload it with the board corrected?

[@micke7]

lul

[@dictatoribenevolo8394]

lolz

[@sjoe_87]

Or you could, you know, explain this to him?

[@micke7]

put a tape on the screen with the real coordinates!

[@slink66]

Use a mirror

[@nrzidro7580]

black pieces on the first rank???????

[@looinrims]

Pre video I want to guess An ultimate chess blunder

[@UnshavenStatue]

Tbh I can sympathize with Team Ding here. Ding has been pretty infamously trapped in China and unable to play international competition due to China's hilariously inhumane lockdowns. Probably it wasn't legally possible for Ding and Rapport to get within 1000 miles of each other a month ago. Could they have done better, yes, for instance they could use the lichess code to setup their own server, but on the whole, it seems likely that they were prevented from being physically able to train together, which is an absolutely brutal circumstance to be in as a world title contender. Is it a mistake, yes, but it's so easy for me to sympathize with them.

[@joeybeann]

I would have won no problem. Sounds like a skill issue.

[@sashaboydcom]

I mean a lot of countries prevented international travel at the time, so it doesn't have much to do with China's particular policy, more just that there aren't a lot of top-level players in China that Ding could have had as a second and trained against.

[@UnshavenStatue]

@@sashaboydcom nah in 2022 most of the world had gotten over their fear, but not china. ding was basically unable to compete in 2022, even as the rest of fide held normal events.

[@daniscool5092]

World chess championship 2023 blunder fest

[@dj_bobby_jay_electra]

Hi Jerry

[@nrzidro7580]

The board is wrong, the pieces is on the wrong side

[@Bella1899]

What the hell I missed the match!!

[@unknownuser6757]

Fischer never would have accepted a draw !!

[@DJSavage978]

why down 1 point in the championship would you offer a draw, he could have won the round and made it more tough on nepo. now hes got black pieces again and stuck in a hard spot.

[@BamThwok76]

just pretend black is white and white is black and black goes first

[@joecordero1699]

First. Love your videos Jerry!!! Bell notification gang, wya??

[@rossschcheese]

What does “deep” mean in the context of a chess move. Can anyone explain?

[@love.flower.chainsaw]

it means that a move doesn't bear fruit until several moves later

[@justthink124]

A players has to think many moves ahead and consider likely sequences of moves that requires a lot of thought and insight. It hints how the chess engines evaluate the game- for any given position of the board, the player whose turn it is has a set of legal moves, then the other player, etc. etc. You can diagram this out graphically, with a position as a point and every possible move a line (or edge) leading to a another point. This makes a tree in computer science lingo, and you can visually see a starting position point to many next possible positions in the next "layer", with even more the following layers, etc. This "state explosion" is what makes chess a hard game to solve, but modern computers can process many layers deep (they also apply fancy pattern recognition algorithms to make the search for 'good' moves less exhaustive..)

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

8 ply depth = think 8 half-moves ahead, or 4 full moves ahead.

[@zaphodbeeblerock]

So basically Nepo can win this by nerves/timeing-problems and an information-leak ... Ding outplayed him often and easily, but that does not help. Anyway, I believe Ding can come back!!!

[@Opferschach]

He can. But he won't.

[@i_mmm_u]

Wow

[@Nenajane-i9s]

I lavet

[@jahongirmukimov-kl7hr]

Blunder show

[@naturalmystic67]

Wow! What a game. I can’t believe Ding failed to put that away. I’m also struggling to understand why, if his prep was public knowledge, Nepo subsequently still found himself in atrociously losing positions so often in this game.

[@Abwehr9]

1st, there are >200 games with these accounts that Nepo would've to study, 2nd I don't think that this was known to team Nepo before today.

[@chrishauser5505]

They only know NOW after R-a2 was played TODAY because that was the only previous game with the R-a2 move in the lichess database, between two accounts only created in March 2023.

[@alexwhite3830]

@@chrishauser5505 We only know now, Nepo's team could know it earlier

[@grandmasterrickrichi]

How do GMs of Ding and Nepo's calibre make so many blunders and mistakes?

[@niecierpliwy3195]

I think is because of pression - they both want that Champion spot, And cuz of that they overlook many tactics

[@williamcombis4836]

complicated positions + time pressure.

[@ColonelAsshat]

time pressure

[@chrishauser5505]

Pressure.

[@looinrims]

Because they’re both of that caliber, gotta calculate a lot

[@SpudNug69]

5 blunders in a world chess championship match must be a new record. What a crazy game!!

[@Abwehr9]

There's a very high likelihood that you're very young haha.

[@anonymous-q2b5s]

While Carlsen holds the title? Probably. Otherwise? Definitely not.

[@nillinx1234]

What if the account is supposed to be a fakeout? a poisoned pawn of the championships.

[@cavejohnson9158]

Magnus would’ve found the win. Just sayin 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@abgvedr]

Now we gotta find Magnus

[@ChessAndNotCheckers]

There's no way for you to confirm that lmao

[@looinrims]

Magnus didn’t find the win 2018 game one that literally everyone thought he was gonna do Sure about that? The Carlsen fanboyism is painful

[@abgvedr]

@@looinrims Oh yeah, and bobby fischer one day brutally blundered a bishop like a rookie. There is a whole compilation of super gms blundering in classical, and also, you realize how many more games people play today, then like 20-30 years ago? Its harder to stay consistent.

[@abgvedr]

@@looinrims Its like out of a million games one time you miss something and you get cancelled by a dummy like yourself. It is painful.

[@aleksanrnaskela]

Ding is not ready to become the next champion, obviously.

[@falten2]

Gg

[@KF1]

:)

[@bowkzz]

Fourth